Metal Gear Solid 2

Radar

Radar Window
Radar Modes

This chapter of my Metal Gear Solid 2 Solution covers the Radarwindow in general, which you can find right under this introducing paragraph. And I will also cover the different Radarmodes that you can encounter while playing the game, you can find this under Radarmodes, one paragraph below the radar window.

Radar Window

Normally the background of your radar is transparent to darkblue in case you have a map of the area (on the Big Shell) and you are not discovered by the guards. The walls of the building you are in at the moment are painted in green.
Depending on the difficulty level you play on it can happen that you see no radar at all when entering a new area in the Big Shell part of the game. Then you have to search for the Node first and download the map of this area. The node is a computer terminal that is very hard to miss. Throughout the walkthrough I always explain where the Node is to be found when you are entering a new area.
If you already have the Sensor A from Peter Stillman you can also select this item, then you can see the position of the Node as a small white dot on the screen.

You can see different things and happenings in your radar window:

Dot in the middle	Player character
Green Cone (from the dot in the middle)	Player View in FPV
other dots (red) and view cone	Enemy units, like: - Guards - Surveillance Cameras - Cyphers - Spring Guns

The color of the view cones of the enemies tells you about their attention (in general and towards you)

Blue Cone	Normal behaviour
Yellow Cone	Cautious soldier (heard something etc.)
Red Cone	Spotted you/ knows from others you are there, searches for you.

Under Water (in the Shell 2 Core of the Big Shell) you can find another special display in your radar window:

white bubbles

airbubbles to breathe

When using the minedetector there is also a new display appearing in your radarwindow:

Small Yellow Cone

there is a Claymore mine planted
at this position, disarm it
by crawling over it.

And the last anomaly in the radar window is caused by the Sensor A that you get from Peter Stillman quite at the beginning of the Big Shell Level.

Greenyellow Mist

Sensor A reacts to Fatman's perfume and
show the molecules of it on your radarscreen.

The RADARMODES

The radarmodes are an important element in the Metal Gear Solid 2 gameplay.
Not only can you see your own position and the position of your enemies in the radarwindow, the color and label on the window tell you what your enemies do at the moment to find you.

Normal Mode

The Normal Mode is, as the name implies already, the normal standard radarmode. It is active when you move around undetected by Soldiers, Surveillance Cameras, Cyphers and all other interested entities.

In normal mode the guards follow their predetermined paths but are still looking around for suspicious things, be it sounds or wet footprints or the like.
Some soldiers even stand still in one place, others guard a huge area from their standing point, while some other guards fall asleep on their guard and don't see anything anymore.

If a guard hears a sound in Normal Mode he tries to find out where that sound came from and often leaves his normal path to do so. If you made a sound by accident hide somewhere. But you can knock on walls and similar things and distract the guard this way and get around him.

Alert Mode

When you are in the Alert Mode the Radar Window is colored dark red and shows absoluteley nothing useful.

You trigger the Alert Mode when you are spotted by a Guard, a Surveillance Camera or a Cypher.
If you are in a closed room when this happens a heavily armed Attack Team is called and comes in to get rid of you. If you are outside a lot of Cyphers appear and shoot at you with machineguns.

At the lower end of the resized radar in Alert Mode a timerdisplay runs down. When it reaches the bottom value you enter Evasion Mode.

Evasion Mode

While you are in Evasion Mode your Radar Window is colored orange and still shows nothing.

If you did hide while in Alert Mode it is possible that a Cleaning happens while in Evasion Mode. Then the heavily armed troops storm the room you have last been seen and search everywhere, even in ventilation shafts, so you better hide in a ventilation shaft that leads somewhere and is no deadend.

At the lower end of the resized radar in Evasion Mode a display runs down. When it reaches the bottom value you enter the Caution Mode.

Caution Mode

While you are in Caution Mode your Radar Window is colored bright green, but at least shows the map again.

While you are in Caution Mode the guards are more alarmed and pay more attention than in Normal Mode. And there are more guards around than on Normal Mode, so be cautious and do no stupid things.

At the lower end of the radar in Caution Mode a display runs down very slow. When it reaches the bottom value you finally enter Normal Mode again and the additional soldiers leave the area.
Just watch your Radar Window, you can see how they leave. Once they are gone everything is back to normal, just like Normal Mode should be.

Radar Jammed

If your Radar is jammed, either by your enemies or by yourself (with a Chaff Grenade) the Radar Window disappears and is replaced with a statusbar showing how long the jamming still lasts.
You can read what the use and effect of this is in the next chapter (Weapons) under Chaff Grenade.